Category: Videogames

Sony Motion Controller Not Complete, Still in Early Days

Sony Motion Controller 2

Sony’s sex toy of doom motion controller is set to compete with Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Project Natal some time in 2010, by most accounts. Nintendo has found remarkable success with its motion controller and Microsoft appears to be close to entering the fray. Sony, while arguably having the most impressive tech of the three, seems two steps behind (like Def Leppard). In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida said:

We are also still working on the motion controller; it’s not complete. We are making changes to the hardware, so we really want to wait until we feel confident enough about giving the audience a chance to try it out. We are making progress, though, and we wanted to show at least snippets of games in that are in development.

We are still in the very early days of motion control development. We have had discussions with the company management where we discussed if we approach this as a peripheral or a platform and we agree that this has huge potential — so we position this as a hardware platform. The initiative was from the Worldwide Studios, but this has to be designed so that many different kinds of games from all publishers can participate in this hardware platform.

I’m definitely excited to play with Sony’s wand (that sounds gross), but I have to wonder about the product’s timing. If its motion controller is released significantly after Project Natal, Sony will be playing catch-up to its competitors. It doesn’t matter if its controller has the highest fidelity; the customers that Sony will attract with this product won’t care and will have had plenty of time to consider the Wii and Xbox 360.

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Epic Games Cliff Bleszinski Talks Digital Distribution, Used Games, Motion Controls, Hideo Kojima, and Getting Punched by RPad

Cliff BleszinskiEpic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski is one of the most prominent game developers in the business. He’s just a smart, talented, and quotable guy (though he whines like a little girl when you hit him…more on that later). Whether he’s talking about digital distribution, what games he’s been digging lately, used-game sales, or bars in San Francisco Chinatown, the man always has something interesting to say. Here’s my interview with one the main minds behind Unreal and Gears of War, the infamous Cliffy B.

Raymond Padilla: With games like Shadow Complex and systems like the Sony PSPgo, digital distribution is becoming a bigger part of the gaming business. How does digital distribution impact you as a game designer?

Cliff Bleszinski: A couple weekends ago, I was up in East Village at “Videogames New York”, a combination new/retro game store. On the front counter, they had Borderlands and in the back aisles, they had the Vectrex and Game & Watch. My feelings went from initially geeking out to immense nostalgia to overwhelming pride for how far this business has come in my lifetime alone. We go digital and that physical history starts drying up and eventually vanishes. Older games become the same as a 45 record.

Digital distribution has the potential to end the used game debate that’s currently raging across the business. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. On one hand, I love having that pipeline into my house: Look, a new game is up on Live; download the title right to your hard drive and fire it up. At the same time, I love having games, movies, and books on my shelves at my home. It feels like an IRL representation of the facets of your personality and tastes whenever people come over to visit. The Kindle and other devices are equally fascinating. I fear not leafing through a book ever again but at the same time I cringe at the thought of having to deal with a CD and a jewel case in a world of digital music.

Finally, as far as the kinds of games I’d like to design and contribute to? Digital frees up some risk. You can make that little dream game you’ve always wanted to make and take more chances, which is incredibly appealing as a creative.

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This Week’s Videogame Releases

The gaming business is entering its final push before everything is on the table for the holiday rush. This week’s big release is Dragon Age: Origins from the outstanding Edmontonians at BioWare. Music games are facing off again, but this time the battle is for casual gamers with Band Hero and Rock Band: LEGO. Is the music-game genre to saturated? Or will these games sell to a different audience?

While you ponder that, here are this week’s PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation Portable, and Nintendo DS releases…along with some brief commentary. I’ve taken out most of the garbage and kids games (unless I found them funny). As always, let me know if you’re planning to buy any of this week’s new releases.

Dragon Age Origins chicky

PlayStation 3
Band Hero — Too bad this isn’t Band Camp Hero. I’d play an RPG about this one time, at band camp.
Dragon Age: Origins — BioWare rules!!!
Pro Evolution Soccer 2010
Rock Band: AC/DC Track Pack
Rock Band: LEGO
Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition — I’m pretty sure the Sith invented repackaging.

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Coffee Talk #16: Videogame Instruction Manuals and You

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, the awesomeness of Brad Lidge, Crystalium being Sphere Grid 2.0, or the old rib eye vs. filet mignon debate, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Last week I came across this interesting Gamasutra article on videogame instruction manuals. It got me thinking about how my gaming habits have changed in regards to instructions. When I was younger, manuals were pretty important and often a valuable resource. Nowadays, I’m irritated if I have to open the box and pop out the manual. Heck, I haven’t even touched the manuals for the vast majority of games I’ve bought over the last three console generations.

Instruction Manual

There are two reasons why I rarely read videogame instruction manuals these days. The explosive growth of the Internet has made it so easy to find quality information on a game — info that’s almost always better than anything in the manual. More recently, in-game tutorials have gotten so good that I usually don’t need the Internet or a manual to figure things out.

As gaming moves towards digital distribution, manuals will become even less important (unless you love printing out PDFs) and eventually extinct. They’re still here today, so I want to ask for your views on instructions. Do you read them? Do you ignore them? Are they a last resort for you? Do you think in-game tutorials are the instruction manuals of today? I instruct you to leave your opinions on instructions! (Okay, I’m really just asking you and hoping you share.)

Sony Corp. CFO Expects PS3 to be Profitable in 2010

PS3 Slim

Sony Corporation chief financial officer Nobuyuki Oneda expects the PlayStation 3 to be a profitable console in 2010. He explained to Impress AV Watch:

At present, the difference between sales and materials cost has been reduced to between 10 and 20%. Within the year, it could be in the single digits. We’ll be able to reach profitability at some point in the next term.

Out of the three major gaming consoles, Sony’s PS3 was, by far, the most expensive to create and build. Achieving profitability is a significant milestone for Sony.

Source via Andriasang

Final Fantasy XIII Crystalium Level-Up System Explained

Japanese magazine Shonen Jump has detailed Final Fantasy XIII’s “Crystalium” system, which is used to level up characters. Using “Crystal Points” and a chart with diverging paths, the system sounds like an advancement of the sphere grid used in Final Fantasy X. The good peeps at Andriasang have translated and analyzed the info:

FFXIII WP1

As you defeat enemies in battle, you earn Crystal Points (CP). These can be exchanged for new skills and abilities, shown on a circular chart in the Crystalium management screen. As you learn certain skills, new paths on the chart open up.

In addition to earning new skills like “Fire,” you can also use this system to increase your characters’ parameters. The screenshots in Jump show options for increasing character HP.

Character growth appears to be done on a per role basis. This is my speculation based off the screenshots, but it appears that each character can be raised individually in the various battle roles (Blaster, Defender, Attacker, and so-forth).

This system sounds great on paper. I loved the sphere grid in FFX. Crystalium sounds like the sphere grid taken to the next level. Even though FFXIII’s gestalt mode continues to vex me, I’m thinking (wishing?) that Crystalium will help me forget it’s there.

Source

God of War III Ultimate Edition Reeks of Awesomeness

I’m usually not big on limited edition game sets (American ones, that is), but the God of War III Ultimate Edition looks so frickin’ cool that I might have to pre-order it. EB Games has it listed at $99.99, which isn’t too ridiculous. Sony product marketing manager Anthony Caiazzo detailed all the goodies on the PlayStation Blog:

God of War 3 Ultimate Edition

Exclusive Collectibles

  • High-End Sculpted Replica of Pandora’s Box
  • Limited-Edition God of War Art Book featuring exclusive art, content and interviews

Exclusive Digital Content (Available via PlayStation Network voucher codes on day of launch)

  • God of War Combat Arena containing an exclusive environment and seven challenges
  • Premium Kratos Skin – Dominus
  • God of War: Unearthing the Legend Franchise Documentary – a full-length movie documentary depicting the history of the God of War franchise
  • God of War Trilogy Soundtrack – God of War, II, and III scores from the game (mp3 digital download).
  • God of War: Blood and Metal EP – a heavy metal homage featuring original music inspired by God of War (mp3 digital download).

I’m probably going to get it just so that I can open Pandora’s box on a daily basis. I’ll find that hilarious for about a year.

Source

Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski Thinks Project Natal is Amazingly Fun

Project Natal

Yesterday, you read Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski’s thoughts on OnLive. Today you get the renowned game designer’s opinion on Project Natal. In my recent interview with Cliff, I asked him what he saw in Microsoft’s motion-sensing wonder. He said:

I see an amazingly fun system that will expand the Xbox user base in a direction previously untapped by Microsoft and currently owned by Nintendo. When all is said and done, there are probably going to be “Wii Fit”-like games, more “hardcore experience”-based games as well as some that lie somewhere between the two.

I don’t believe that motion or gesture-based controls of any sort will replace the controller any time soon. They will merely enable yet another way to interact with your console, and Natal could potentially enhance classic controller-based games in many, many different and exciting ways. (None of which I’m ready to talk about at this time, so Internet, don’t go reading into this too much and start drawing random conclusions.)

What do you think of Cliffy B’s opinions on Project Natal? Agree? Disagree? What do you make of him addressing the Internet as if it were a person or a group of people? Is it a mental disorder that he developed while working so hard on Gears of War?

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

Just because the Yankees are going to do some damage in Philadelphia this weekend doesn’t mean that I won’t have time to play games. Ha! There are three games that I’m going to play more of this weekend. The first was a total surprise — Marvel Superhero Squad for PSP. I brought it with me on my brief trip to SF and I just couldn’t put it down. A lot of it is dumb and basic, but I was enjoying the mindlessness of it all and I imagine that it would be a great game to play with my eight-year old…uhm…if I had an eight-year old, that is.

Of course I’m going to be playing more WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 — the front runner for the “best writing in a game made by man” award. I’m still playing around in dream matches and “Road to WrestleMania” mode, but I promise to eventually make some content and upload it.

Magnacarta 2

Lastly, I’m going to play some Magnacarta 2. As many of you know, I love me some Japanese RPGs. This one looks pretty traditional (totally cool with me) and the reviews haven’t been the best, but a few of my fellow RPG lovers have really enjoyed it. I want to see for myself.

As always, I want to know what you’re playing. Share your weekend playlist with the gang.

Coffee Talk #15: Frightening Games for Halloween

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, the Yankees totally ruling last night, Foo Fighters playing on Facebook, or the brilliance that is beef Wellington, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

It’s Halloween tomorrow and a fantastic time to scare the crap out of yourself with a good survival-horror game. The genre has gone through a lot of changes since it was made popular by the first Silent Hill and Resident Evil games. Somewhere along the line, survival-horror titles became shooting-the-hell-out-of-everything-with-a-large-arsenal-of-automatic-weapons games. Survival? Sure (as long as you don’t run out of bullets). Horror? Not so much.

Fatal Frame

Even though the games had a few issues, the Fatal Frame series is probably my favorite line of survival-horror games. Clever use of graphics and sound created a truly creepy atmosphere. Using a magical camera as your only weapon (as ridiculous as it sounds) added a feeling of helplessness. Mixing Shinto rituals with modern occultism gave the games a sense of believable fantasy. Fatal Frame has such a unique and fantastic mood — something most recent survival-horror titles have eschewed in favor of rapid-fire action.

On the eve of Halloween, I want to know what game or games you think are scary. What titles made you turn on the lights? Do you have any favorite “oh s&*t” moments in a game that you’ll never forget? Let your fellow RPadholics know (but try not to scare anyone too badly).